Sure there was a little rain at times, but at least this year’s Dark Lord Day was a lovely 70 degrees compared to last year’s 55 degree high. It was a pretty wonderful day to get beer and everyone seemed in much better spirits as you knew you were guaranteed to get beer this year thanks to a golden ticket.

You had the opportunity to try just about every rare beer on the planet thanks to some very generious beer nerds and while I know a lot of people are against the whole Dark Lord idea, the day really is something to behold.  Here are a couple of photos for those of you that couldn’t make it.

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Yes, that’s right. I’m giving away two bottles of the much sought-after beer from Three Floyds Brewing, Dark Lord.  Now, there are some rules for this contest:

1. You have to live in the St. Louis Metro area.  I’m not shipping this beer, we’ll meet at a mutually-agreed location and you’ll get your beer.
2. You have to be 21 years of age.  Duh.
3. If you already have some 09 Dark Lord, please do not enter this contest.  I’m trying to open this open to people who didn’t have a chance to buy the beer.
4. Please don’t sell this bottle after receiving it.  This is coming straight out of my allotment which means right out of my pocket.
5. There will be two winners, so I can spread the love.

If you’re interested in winning a chance to own one of the most coveted beers in the world, email contest@stlhops.com with a subject of “Dark Lord” and tell me what you’re willing to do to own this beer. I have a feeling we’ll have a lot of people interested in winning so I’ll be randomly drawing two winners for a single bottle each on Monday, May 4th at 9AM.

We have a new thread in the Forum titled, “What did you drink last night?” It gives everyone a chance to discuss what beers they enjoyed the night before and maybe even brag a little bit. As I was typing up a monster post for the thread, it occurred to me it would probably make a decent post on the main blog as well. So here’s a little of my weekend drinking:

Friday
Two Hearted: Had kind of a crappy day, so I started off with an old favorite. Unfortunately I had it at Growler’s and I was having a poor time there.
Green Flash Hop Head Red: Came home and popped open one of the three beers I picked up while in Champaign. I was looking for their West Coast IPA, had to settle for this instead. Nice beer, but didn’t really live up to the “Hop Head” moniker. Could have standed a bit more bitterness, but it was still a nice beer.
DFH Indian Brown Ale: Picked this one up because of a comment someone said about this beer on another message board I post on. He compared it to dishwater. I saw that it picked up good ratings on BA (I know it’s not the end-all be-all of ratings, but it’s a quick go-to) and decided to try for myself. I’m very glad I did, it has a very pleasant hop aroma that matches well with the roasted malts.
Founders Red Rye: If this was available in Missouri, it may usurp Two Hearted as may go-to beer.

Saturday
Schlafly Weiss Bier: I volunteered working the Art of Food event and as such we got free Schlafly Weiss. I had about a billion glasses before the night was over. I really enjoyed it and wish they would sell this stuff in the bottles they currently label as a hefeweizen.
De Proef Reserve Signature Ale: After AoF ended, we were beat and decided to get a drink. We hit up 33 Wine Bar as the laid back atmosphere suited our desire to relax. Dylan recommended this, but I wish I could remember more about it.
Péché Mortel: Forgetting this was not a 750, I was planning on sharing this with a friend, oops. I remember this being very pleasant, but that’s about it.
Bad Idea: I don’t remember what it was, but it was not a good decision by me to order one last beer at last call. So we’ll just go with the name “Bad Idea.” Let’s make it clear though, the beer was not at fault.

Sunday
DFH 90 Minute:We decided to hit The Rotten Apple as sort of a present to ourselves after AoF. Bill and Ellie had not yet gone and Bill was keen to try a draught 90 Minute. We agreed that it’s a completely awesome beer, but it’s honestly not that much different than drinking it out of a bottle. But we wouldn’t turn it down if it was offered to us.
Founders Rubeaus: This was my original reason for going up to the Apple. I really enjoyed this beer out of a bottle so I wanted to try it on draught. Unlike 90 Minute, this was is very different on draught. I found that the bottled version was a bit sweet and edged closer to a raspberry soda whereas the draught version reminded me more of a beer.
Three Floyds Alpha King: The American India Pale Ale that’s trying to disguise itself as an American Pale Ale. I wish I would have had this before the 90 Minute, because it almost seemed like an APA after the DFH offering.
Founders Dirty Bastard: An obvious Americanized version of a Scottish Ale, but a damn good one. It had a very thick, almost creamy mouthfeel and plenty of caramel sweetness that was never overwhelming.
Avery The Beast: Jerad then started breaking out some beers from in the back. The first was this 14.9% monster from Avery. The nose contained a big raisiny malty aroma along with some hot alcohol as well. The taste was sickenly sweet, in fact I think this beer is the reason why the word “cloying” was invented. Not my cup of tea.
Jolly Pumpkin Noel De Calabaza: I actually had this one a couple of weeks ago at Erato and at that time I remembered the previous bottles I’ve had seemed more sour. I don’t know if my palate has adjusted to these funky/sour beers, but this beer was no exception. It had plenty of funk, but not much of the sour I remember from previous bottles. Still a great beer though.

My liver is glad the weekend is over.

Readers of STL Hops probably have figured out by now that I’m pretty obsessed with Three Floyds Brewing out of Munster, IN. If you’ve ever had some of their beers you’ll quickly realize why my obsession took root. Because of my sickness, I decided to attend Dark Lord Day 2008. If you’re unaware of what Dark Lord Day is, once a year Three Floyds brews a Russian Imperial Stout named Dark Lord and it’s only sold on Dark Lord Day. People (like me) travel from miles around to buy the beer.

But what makes the event so much fun is that it’s a huge gather of beer nerds that get together to not only buy the beer, but bring beer to taste and trade. You can’t swing a dead cat without having someone offer you something from around the country to taste that you’ve never had before.

This is the front of the line, people were mingling, sharing some beer and trying to stay warm. It was about a balmy 45 degrees on Saturday morning.

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If you haven’t made your mind up whether you’re planning on to attend the Schlafly Repeal of Prohibition Festival, maybe this list will finally get you to pony up the 25 bucks. The following is the tentative list and could be subject to change.

Schlafly

• Pale
• Hefe
• Oatmeal Stout
• Pilsner
• APA
• #15
• Kolsch
• Raspberry Hefeweizen
• Coffee Stout
• ESB
• Vienna
• American Brown
• Maplewood Ale
• Irish Extra Stout
• Biere de Garde
• Barleywine
• Imperial Stout

Brugge Brasserie

• Tripel de Ripple
• Brugge Black
• Brugge White

Mad Anthony Brewing Company

• Ol Woody Pale Ale
• Auburn Lager
• Black Squirrel Oatmeal Stout

New Albanian Brewing Company

• NABC Hoptimus Imperial IPA
• NABC Phoenix Kentucky Komon
• NABC Elsa Von Horizon Imperial Pilsner
• NABC Thunderfoot (Imperial Stout)

Three Floyds

• Alpha King
• Rabbid Rabbit

Each year Schlafly invites breweries from a different state to come and celebrate the 21st Amendment. This year they’ve invited breweries from Indiana. For a while now I’ve held out hope that they would invite one of my favorite breweries (and one of the best in the nation, in my opinion) to the event. So I’ve been holding off on writing this up in the hopes that something big would happen. This weekend it did.

Three Floyds from Munster, Indiana will be attending the Repeal of Prohibition Festival at the Schlafly Bottleworks on Saturday, April 12th. While Three Floyds is awesome, it’s like a cherry on top of an amazing dessert. Not only do we get 3F, but we also get to enjoy beers from Brugge Brasserie, New Albanian Brewing Co. and Mad Anthony Brewing Co.

While I haven’t cleared this with anyone from Schlafly, I can almost guarentee I’ll be live blogging this event.  But if you’re in the area, skip the live blog and make an effort to come down to the Festival. You’re going to have some of the best breweries in the nation celebrating the fact we get to enjoy their art. You can buy your tickets here and I would suggest ordering quickly, as I’m sure this one will sell out.

I got the opportunity to interview Mike Atwood of the blog Hoosier Beer Geek. Mike, and the rest of the Knights of the Beer Roundtable, are doing for Indiana what I’m trying do for St. Louis; promote beer and the culture surrounding it. In a bit of a cross promotional event, think Marvel/DC, he also asked me a few questions about STL Hops, feel free to read his interview with me here.

So I see there are 7 Knights of the Beer Roundtable, is there a King? Do you have a full knighting ceremony?

If there was a king, it was Chris Maples, who started the whole Hoosier Beer Geek thing. He started inviting others along pretty early on, and recently he’s been so busy with work that we never see him. We’ve all kind of taken over for him in the meantime. All decisions, from what we’re drinking on a particular evening to the design of the web site are voted on by all seven members.

The knighting ceremony is highly secretive and if I told you about it I’d have to kill you.

How does it feel to live in Three Floyds country and have the rest of the US extremely jealous of you? (Oh and who do I have to kill to get some Dark Lord?)

None of us are currently beer traders, but it’s definitely nice to know that if we were, we’ve got an ace up our sleeve.

We’re all well aware of Three Floyds (or at least you should be STL Hops readers, if you’re not already) but what other Indiana breweries are you proud to call your own?

We’re really blessed in that there’s a wide variety of brewers in Indiana doing all sort of different things. In Indianapolis and now Terre Haute we’ve got Ted Miller at Brugge Beer doing really fantastic work in a Belgian style. Also in Indy we’ve got the Broad Ripple Brewpub, which is pretty much where craft beer got its start in Indiana. Just outside of Indy in Noblesville we’ve got Barley Island, who won silver for their Black Majic Java Stout at the 2006 GABF. In Fort Wayne we’ve got Dave Holmes at Warbird doing really fantastically drinkable and wonderfully tasty “entry level” sort of craft beer. Down in Bloomington we’ve got Upland, another brewery that’s won gold and silver at GABF, and bronze at the World Beer Cup. We’ve got New Albanian down in New Albany, who currently have us head over heels in love with their Hoptimus. And that’s really just the tip of the Indiana beer iceberg.

You all call yourself “beer geeks,” how do you feel about the term “beer snob?”

Right off the bat we want to let people know we’re geeks, not snobs, hence the name Hoosier Beer Geek. I think we all consider it our mission to include as many people in this wonderful thing that is craft beer, and that’s not a snobby thing at all, is it? The way we see it, the more people that know about craft beer, the better the chances that we’ll be able to find it in restaurants and bars all over the state.

Were you aware that the term “hoosier” has a completely different connotation in St. Louis?

For the first twenty-three years of my life, I lived in a little town called Trenton Illinois, ten or so miles from Scott AFB. When I moved to Indy, I couldn’t get over how often the word Hoosier was used in everyday speech – the news reports: “Five Hoosiers Killed In An Eastside Car Crash”, the words “Hoosier Hospitality”, the IU basketball team… Hoosier this, Hoosier that…

Of course growing up just outside of St. Louis, I was thinking the same thing you are:

Peach fuzz moustache, butt cut
El Camino pick-up truck
Aerosmith, Loverboy, Motley Crue
Holding hands just me and you

We don’t need no high school
I think we’re too cool
We’ll have kids at seventeen
Getting laid at Dairy Queen

Hoosier love, Hoosier love
South Side City Hoosier love

“Hoosier Love” – St. Louis’ own MU330

After a while, Hoosier grows on you though. Like a fungus.

How far have any of you knights traveled because of your beer obsession?

Though it wasn’t a beer-only trip, Gina (my girlfriend and fellow Knight) and I recently returned from DC, where we took in the Brickskeller and one of Dogfish’s brewpubs. We’ve been to Cincinnati on a trip that was basically built around buying beer. I was just at the Tap Room in St. Louis. I think once you’re into beer, every trip becomes a beer buying opportunity.